In 2020, the number of femicides in France fell to 90 for the year – the lowest since such statistics began to be collated 15 years ago. The term femicide is sometimes defined as the murder of women by men but in France it generally refers to the murder of a woman by a partner, ex-partner or family member. It’s about daring to occupy the public space, about women leaving their mark in public. More than 40% of the victims had already suffered violence at the hands of their partner and nearly half of those had reported it to the police. In 2019, 146 women were killed in France by a partner or ex-partner. This is our loudspeaker.”įrance has one of the highest rates of femicide in Europe. We have constructed our own media platform.
No more secrets, no more shame, no more silence. It’s taking back control in our lives and it is liberating. “One mother had suffered conjugal violence and painted the messages with her young son, went out and stuck them up.
It takes 10 minutes to write a slogan on a piece of paper, it doesn’t take a lot of money or resources.
“At the last count more than 200 cities, towns and villages in France had collage groups others in London and in more than 15 countries around the world.” “Suddenly we had people all over the place contacting us.” says Camille. The street action caught the imagination of women everywhere and spread even beyond France. In the early days they were called “ Collages Contre les Féminicides” (collages against femicide), with groups pasting up the names of women killed by their current or former partner. Stern began putting up posters denouncing violence against women in Marseille, later moving to Paris where she set up a collage collective.Īctivists known as Les Colleuses paste anti-femicide posters on a wall in Paris in October last year.
Murder set pieces women trial#
Stern, then living in Marseille, was deeply shocked by the 2019 killing of Julie Douib, 34, a mother of two children, shot dead at her home by an abusive ex-partner who goes on trial in June and denies her murder.ĭouib had reported the man to the police five times before her death, but no action was taken. The idea for street posters to highlight cases of femicide was dreamed up by Marguerite Stern, a former member of the feminist activist group FEMEN. We put up a collage on the anniversary of her death at the request of her mother,” Lextray said. Later, they found her body under a pile of rubbish. The police had been called but they treated it as a domestic and did nothing. “Her name was Salomé and she was only 21 when she was beaten to death.
They are the work of Les Colleuses – the gluers – feminist activists who have found a simple, cheap and effective way to make women’s voices heard.Ĭamille Lextray became a colleuse afterthe particularly brutal murder of a young woman in September 2019. Another successful, albeit illegal, hit-and-run poster pasting.įor the past two years, similar messages have been appearing on walls all over Paris, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Poitiers, Lyons and other French cities. Then it is up and out of there to avoid a €68 fine if caught by the police. On a kiosk under the awnings of the local market, paste, slap, paste: “S top féminicide”. Outside the municipal swimming pool it’s paste, slap, paste: “ L e consentement n’est pas une option” (consent isn’t optional). The message, in black letters on white paper, is clear: “ S top au harcelement de rue” (stop street harassment).Īnother wall, another message. It is the signal for a well-practised piece of choreography: Natacha glues Camille slaps up each lettered sheet Cindy pastes over it. The women, all in their 20s, stop on the main road of this Paris suburb by the wall of what looks like a former bank. On a weekday evening, in between coronavirus lockdowns and curfews, Camille, Natacha and Cindy are out with a bright yellow plastic bucket of glue, two large brushes and a wad of A4 paper, each sheet covered with a single letter.
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